EIGHT

HARLEY’S STRANGE TRIP INTO MELANCHOLY vanished by the time she returned from shopping. When had she ever made so many impulsive purchases in one single day? Mona and Everly would both be proud.

The long denim skirt and Navajo blanket wrap would be perfect to wear to the country auction with her riding boots and handkerchief-linen blouse. But what she absolutely couldn’t wait to wear—and still couldn’t believe she’d bought—was a pair of cherry red jeans and matching Justin ropers.

She hadn’t owned a pair of jeans since… when? They’d certainly been BB—Before Brad. Obviously, her subliminal conscious had still been shopping with Brad’s tastes in mind. Had she shopped today for herself? Or for Gardner Barnes?

Call-waiting beeped on the line while she was making arrangements with a bed-and-breakfast near Fredericksburg.

“Do you need to get that?” asked the clerk. “I’ll be glad to hold.”

“No. If it’s important, they’ll call back,” she answered, and finished making her reservations.

When the phone rang a second time a couple of hours later, she was struggling into her freshly washed and dried and shrunk-at-least-one-size red jeans. She belly flopped across the bed and jerked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Miss Golden? Dr. Fischer here.”

She suppressed a groan, hoping he would ask if this was a good time so she could say no. “Dr. Fischer. What can I do for you?”

“I’m just following up on the message I left you Friday. Have you had an opportunity to pursue my lead?”

Give a girl a chance, will ya, Doc? “I’m afraid I didn’t have any luck locating the bottle in Spring. None of the shop owners I spoke with remembered having stocked or sold one recently. I did find a pharmacist’s scale, however.”

“Wonderful. When can I see it?”

“It’s being couriered over tomorrow but I’m leaving first thing in the morning for central Texas. I won’t be back in town before the end of the week.” Harley didn’t tell him about the bottles or the hospital supplies for fear he’d hunt her down.

“I can’t say I’m not disappointed but perhaps you’ll have more to show me when you return.”

“There’s a good chance,” Harley assured him. “I’ve had phenomenal luck finding hidden treasures at small estate sales.”

“You will be in touch, won’t you?”

“Of course, Doctor.”

“Until then. And, Miss Golden—”

“Yes?” she prompted.

He cleared his throat “Thank you for your efforts. Re-creating the history of medicine has become an obsession with me. I appreciate your hard work.”

“You’re welcome, Dr. Fischer.” Harley hung up feeling guilty for every uncharitable thought she’d had about the man.

After struggling out of the jeans, she folded them, having decided they would work better on a day for browsing through shops than on a day of driving. To drive, she needed to breathe.

She’d just pulled her overnighter from the closet when the phone rang again. Not wanting to chance another guilt trip with Dr. Fischer, she let the answering machine pick up.

I am currently unavailable, Harley mouthed along with the recording, then added verbally, and very loudly, “And I intend to be so for the next twelve hours.”

The beep sounded and Harley waited. And waited. And had her hand halfway to the receiver when she heard, “Harley?”

Gardner. She didn’t know whether to be thrilled or annoyed.

“Don’t pick up if you’re there.”

As if she was about to give him the satisfaction? Uh-uh. Not a chance.

“I just wanted you to know that I’d looked you up. I don’t want any secrets standing in the way. And I’m not going to show up unannounced. I could find you. But I think I’ll let you come to me. I want you to call the shots. This is your fantasy, after all.

“So tell me what you want. Tell me what turns you on. Tell me your darkest secrets, your deepest desires. But be warned. Tonight I want you. Fiercely. And what I can’t do to your body, I plan to do to your mind. Call me, when the waiting gets to be too much. Call me. Call—” Beeeeeeeeep.

The disconnecting click barely registered. All Harley heard was Gardner’s voice. She took her phone off the hook, though she knew with a sixth sense of certainty that he wouldn’t call again.

He’d told her what he wanted—and what he wanted from her. The question was whether or not Gardner Barnes was the man to meet her needs.

She had too much of the real stuff yet to learn. All those things that might spoil her fantasy. Would he leave beard stubble in the sink? Would he eat the last four Oreos she’d stashed away for a bout of PMS? Would he cuddle her close after they made love or roll over and go to sleep?

Harley set the phone’s receiver back in the cradle. A smug smile pulled at her lips. Oh, she’d wait all right. She’d wait until she was sure Gardner couldn’t stand it anymore. Then she’d call and let him know just exactly who was in charge of this relationship.

He wanted fantasy? Easy. She was working on a doozy. He wanted secrets? Fine. She had ones she’d never told a living soul. He wanted desires? No problem. She’d give him a phone call to knock his socks off.

Gardner had just come up with another name to call himself using the word ass when the phone rang. Fully clothed, he carried the portable phone outside—away from his bedroom and his bed. Easing down into the porch rocker, he answered.

“I didn’t want you to know anything about me,” she said, sounding more playful than upset.

“What I know is what you’ve told me.” But only because he hadn’t yet heard back on that score. “And your phone number.”

“My phone number tells you where I am.”

“Your phone number puts you in one of the biggest urban sprawls in the country.” He cringed at the thought of living like that. “I’m not coming to Houston to find you until you tell me to.”

“You broke the rules. I think you need to be punished.”

Punished? That sounded promising. He cleared his throat then asked, “What kind of punishment did you have in mind?”

“I’m going to talk. You’re going to listen.”

Okay. She’d warned him. Studying the toes of his boots, he set the rocker in motion and forced himself to relax. “I’m all ears.”

“I thought about you earlier,” she began. “When I was in the shower. I never realized how many hard-to-reach spots there are on the female body.”

“Besides your back?”

“I told you to listen,” she admonished sharply. “If you don’t behave, I’ll have to stop your punishment.”

He took an immediate vow of silence.

“That’s better. Now, I thought I’d let you know that the back of my thighs is another place I have trouble getting to. I feel like I’m doing a contortionist act, you know, twisting and bending. If you’d been there, it would have been much easier.”

No. It would have been much harder.

“But we’ve already talked about baths and showers. And beds. Though I did change my sheets tonight with you in mind. I wasn’t sure what might go with Fruit of the Looms. I started digging in the linen closet and found the perfect set. Everly sent them to me last year on my birthday.”

Sweat broke out on Gardner’s brow. He dropped his hat to the porch beside him and buried his face in the crook of his denim-covered elbow.

“They’re satin. Hot pink drizzled in black.”

He stretched out his legs and groaned. He’d be fine. He really would.

“I thought about wearing a gown. But then I thought of you.”

He popped the snaps down the front of his shirt and leaned back in the rocker, the mound of his zipper pointing straight to the moon.

“I have on panties if you can call them that. They cover most of what they’re supposed to. The lace cups of the bra don’t cover anything. But I think that’s the whole point. Don’t you?”

Oh, yeah. He got the point. And the point was getting stiffer.

“Oh,” she went on, Miss Innocent if there ever was one. “Did I tell you they’re black? Except for the garter belt. It’s the same color as the sheets. And the stockings are fishnet.”

Now he was strangling.

“I lit candles when I got into bed, you know, thinking of you. The room smells honey sweet,” she murmured appreciatively. “I left the rest of the lights off so the shadows on the wall flicker.”

Choking, desperate to breathe.

“I wasn’t sure what to do with my hair so I piled it on top of my head. I’ll let you take it down. Is that okay?”

He said nothing. Nothing.

“I even put on lipstick.” She moaned as if running her tongue over her lips. “I thought it might be fun to leave marks on your body. Everywhere I kiss you. And, Gardner?”

“Huh?” he barely managed to croak out.

“I plan to kiss you everywhere.” She kissed into the phone. “Sweet dreams.”

Gardner hung up once he realized the buzzing in his head was the dial tone.

Shoving off his shirt, he stood, jerked his boots and socks from his feet, and walked barefoot across the yard. Dazed, he dropped his jeans and drawers inside the corral and went face first into the horse trough.

“You feelin’ okay, boy?”

Gardner stared blankly at his uncle, then at the pile of scrambled eggs and hot buttered toast steaming on the table. “What makes you ask?”

“Oh, little things. Like the clothes I found scattered across the yard this morning. I thought in a fit of delirious fever you mistook the horse trough for your bathtub.”

Judson turned from the stove. “But now that you’re standing here dripping on my floor, wearing nothing but a towel, I’m thinking maybe your fever’s in your brain.”

“Sorry,” Gardner mumbled. “I showered in the bunkhouse. I didn’t have a change of clothes”—he glanced down—“or a bigger towel.”

After his dunking in the trough, he couldn’t handle the prospect of sleeping alone in his own bed, so he’d bedded down on a pallet of saddle blankets in the barn.

Last night he’d figured discomfort was the way to go. The spring-fed waters that pumped into the bunkhouse well had done a good job cooling his physical fever. But standing here, looking like a loon dripping onto Judson’s clean floor, brought it all back.

Once he got through with her, Harley Golden wouldn’t know the meaning of punishment. He planned to turn her inside out.

“Gardner!”

His head snapped up.

“Grab the mop out of the laundry room and clean up this mess,” Judson ordered, gesturing with one hand while he scrambled more eggs with the other. “And you might give a wipe to the stairs, too, considering it’s your dirt still sittin’ there, and dammit, boy, fasten that towel tighter. This ain’t no porn show.”

Water dripped down Gardner’s back and into the towel knotted at his waist. He bit off a curse and spun around, grabbing the mop from the corner behind the washing machine. He soaked up the puddle and swiped his way up the stairs.

A yawning Ty waited for him at the top. “You forget where your bathroom is, big brother?”

Gardner brandished the mop head like a weapon. Ty jumped back. “Last time I looked it was two doors down the hall from yours. You got a problem with that, I’ll lend you my suitcase.”

“Why would I want to go anywhere? I’ve got a front row seat to the Gardner Barnes Show. Or is it”—Ty hid half his face with one hand—“the Phantom of the Ranch? He wears his towel to hide his shame.”

“I’ll show you shame,” Gardner growled. The mop clattered to the floor. He whipped off his towel and, with a flick of his wrist, wound it into a twisted rope. Before Ty could think to blink, he found himself calf-tied, one ankle and two wrists bound together. “Let’s see you get yourself out of that one, college boy.”

Ty worked at the knot. “At least I’m not the one standing naked in the hall.”

“Tyler, that you I hear up there?”

“Be right down, Uncle Jud,” he called, then grumbled to himself, “Soon as I figure out how to scoot bassackward down the stairs.”

“Ty,” Judson called again. “If your brother’s still standing there, tell him he left the damn phone outside last night. I got his boots and hat off the porch, but he’s gonna have to get the rest of his clothes out of the corral hisself.”

Tyler lay back on the wooden floor and grinned. “More late night phone calls, big brother?”

Gardner scowled down. “What we ought to be talking about here is not my phone calls, but the Friday afternoon excuse of studying you used to get out of chores, and the fact that you didn’t make it home with a single book. Leave them over at Tamara Shotweiler’s, did you?”

Ty colored, then smiled as inspiration struck. “I don’t know, Gardner. I’m thinking maybe what we ought to talk about is me laying here tied up and you standing there butt naked.”

Gardner jerked the towel free from Ty’s arms. “Get down to breakfast and see to it that you’re here after school.” He knotted the towel at his waist. “And as far as studying goes, just make me proud, Tyler.”

Gardner slammed the door to his bedroom on the sound of his brother lumbering down the stairs. Knowing he deserved every bit of ribbing he got from both Ty and Jud didn’t make it easier to swallow the fact that he was being led around by his libido like it was filling in for his brain.

He knew why Harley had done what she’d done. If their relationship held to convention, last night would’ve been their third date. Harley had decided to show him her strength, to tell him she was an equal partner with equal say. She’d taken charge and, instead of a kiss to get the juices of imagination stirring, she’d given great talk.

Gardner had been stirred by her words and her feminine power, stirred enough to want to take this relationship further. He didn’t mean to bed, not right now, though he knew they were headed there eventually.

He could do worse for himself than a woman with Harley’s imagination. Sexual compatibility went a long way in a marriage—especially a loveless marriage.

If he’d never seen her, he’d be more content to let things ride. But knowing what she looked like, more than liking what he saw, and the awareness that she felt the same put a twist to the tension of the phone calls.

Gardner didn’t know which was twisted more, his mind or his gut. The hard-on he could live with, or at least work around. But the mind games made for bad business.

He figured he could afford to take a couple of days off—more like, he couldn’t afford not to. Judson was right. He had a fever. He needed a cure in a bad way.

If she called tonight, he’d find out how long she’d be away. And when she got home, she’d find him waiting. Then they’d take things from there. If she didn’t call, he’d head to Houston first thing in the morning and find out exactly where Harley Golden lived.